Stilinski & Martin, Private Detective Agency
by Anorak Myth
Summary: Stiles and Derek broke up three years ago, but when Cora comes to him suspecting foul play in her brother's disappearance, Stiles finds himself once again caught up in the whirlwind that is Derek Hale. AU, Sterek.
1. Reporting Missing

Based on a prompt, the link is posted on my profile, or you can use this: bilesandthesourwolfDOTtumblrDOTcom /post/71604792010/be-the-person-they-fear-you-are-like-can-this

HUGE thank you to my beta Twilight 684!

Warnings: work in progress, AU, not canon-compliant, mentions of violence, rated M for later chapters - PM me if you have any specific questions/concerns

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf and I am making no profit from this writing.

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Chapter 1: Reporting Missing

Stiles Stilinski was not an eavesdropper. He knew how to mind his own business. The thing was, he considered a lot of things to be his business. For instance, this building was his business. So anything that happened in this building was his business. It was just logical that he should listen in to the conversation in his partner Lydia Martin's office. If it was really private, she would have remembered to close the door. Leaving the door ajar was practically an invitation, how could he refuse?

"Ms. Hale –" she was saying. Stiles stiffened in alarm. _No_, he told himself, _it's a common name, it could be anyone._ Just because she was talking to someone with the last name Hale, didn't mean it was a Hale he knew. Besides, Lydia would have told him, right?

"Look, I'm sorry, but –"

"I realize that, Ms. Hale, but our policy is very clear –"

"I will _not_ put Stiles on the phone," she hissed, "He's been through enough –"

He pushed the door lightly, pleased when Lydia looked up in surprise, her lips forming a soft _oh_ of dismay. Good. He didn't like to think of himself as petty, but he didn't need her to protect him, he could handle a phone call.

"Give me the phone," he said, giving her his best poker face. She pursed her lips for a moment, then sighed and handed it over.

"Stilinski speaking," he said into the phone.

"Stiles! Thank God! It's Cora, Derek is missing…" she went on for a minute, but Stiles wasn't listening. He was stuck on those three words, _Derek is missing._ Derek Hale.

Derek Hale, who studied architecture and secretly loved Batman. Derek Hale, who had ridiculous bunny teeth and a bright, genuine smile. Derek Hale, who was afraid of his father's badge and gun, but stayed for dinner anyway because Stiles asked him to. Derek Hale, who said Stiles could do anything he put his mind to. Derek Hale, who he had wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Derek Hale, who had said _I love you_ and _goodbye_ in the same breath.

Lydia gently pried the phone out of his fingers, drawing him out of his trance. Cora was still talking.

"And he's all I have left, and I know you two have history, but –"

"Ms. Hale," Lydia interrupted, reclaiming the phone, "Come to the office tonight…Yes, just come to the back door when you get here, our security guard will let you in."

Their "security guard" was actually just Jackson, Lydia's boyfriend who always came over on nights she was on call. He said he was protecting her, but Stiles had seen them through the window more than once – just last week, he was passed out in her lap watching _The Notebook._ It was pathetic.

Lydia set the phone back down in its cradle and opened her desk drawer, flipping through the files before pulling out a thin manila folder with HALE, DEREK written on the tab in black marker.

"Maybe it'll be good for you to talk to Cora," she suggested as she opened the folder and scanned the page with her index finger, "It might give you some closure."

Closure. Right. Moving on. He had tried – with Heather, Malia, and most recently, Kyle – but he just kept comparing them to Derek. He had been so in love, and he thought Derek loved him back. That was hard to just let go, even after nearly three years.

"Lyds?" he asked quietly.

"Mmm?" she looked up briefly. He swallowed.

"I want to read his file," he admitted. She didn't look happy about it, but she nodded. Tapping the page with her finger, she stood up and went to the bookshelf, pulling out a large black box from the bottom shelf.

"Okay," she huffed as she lifted it, "Everything you need to know about the case is in here."

He would make a joke about the extensive file, if the circumstances were different. But it was Derek, and nothing about this was funny. Derek had left him, and that _hurt_, but he still cared. He had been upset, yes – hell, he had been furious about the way Derek ended things – but he had never wished him harm. The thought of him in trouble, even now, made his hands shake.

"Thanks," he muttered as he accepted the box, "Have Jackson send her to my office when she gets here."

She nodded, "And Stiles? Remember, he pulls this crap all the time. Don't let your feelings get in the way."

"I know, Lyds," he didn't have the energy to argue with her. The anger had left him as soon as Cora had spoken those awful words: _Derek is missing._ Defending his ability to separate work from his personal life just didn't seem important, faced with the possibility of Derek in danger.

* * *

He set the box down on the floor next to his desk and started looking through the folders. There were maybe a dozen folders that were obviously about Derek, labeled things like POLICE REPORTS, BASICS, PICTURES, and AFFILIATES. Then there was a divider, and more folders – HALE, CORA; HALE, LAURA; LAHEY, ISAAC.

He decided to start with Derek, it seemed like the most logical place. He pulled out the folder labeled PICTURES first, out of curiosity. And wow. That was possibly the most flattering mugshot Stiles had ever seen, and he had seen a lot of them in his time snooping through his dad's desk. (What could he say, he had always been destined to be a detective.) He checked the date: just over a month after they broke up. Interesting. Derek went from law-abiding citizen to…drunk and disorderly? He blinked, rubbed his eyes. Nope, it was still there. He tried to picture Derek as a drunkard. He couldn't do it, so he shook his head before flipping through the folder until he found the crime scene photos.

If you could even call it that. It looked like an average apartment, albeit a rather Spartan one. No furniture was overturned, there were no broken lamps, no haphazardly thrown laundry. The bed was even made. He closed the folder and set it aside before pulling out the file labeled POLICE REPORTS.

That was interesting: a 911 transcript.

_Responder: 911, what's your emergency?_

_Caller: Hi, there's, um, there's a lot of yelling at my neighbor's house, I just, I'm a little worried, and I was hoping someone could check it out – I don't want to get involved._

_Responder: What's your location?_

At the bottom of the page was written in Lydia's careful script: _officer sent to house – domestic dispute, no charges filed._

What was strange was that the next six pages were all 911 transcripts, and at the bottom of each page, she had written the same thing: _domestic dispute, no charges filed._ He couldn't imagine Derek – what, beating his girlfriend? Was that what they were suggesting? But it struck him as odd that the neighbors would keep calling if there was really nothing going on. Then again, maybe he just lived by a bunch of paranoid old people.

There was a knock on the doorframe. He looked up to see Cora Hale standing there. He thought about standing up to greet her, but it seemed ridiculous to put on airs with her. Cora had always been shrewd, she would see through any act.

"Cora," he smiled a little, and it wasn't hard. They had drifted apart after the break up, but things had never been hostile between them. Cora had been upset that they broke up and tried to convince Derek to call him. He never did, but Stiles appreciated the effort.

"Stiles," she replied carefully as she moved to sit in the chair across from his desk. Her relief when she had called earlier had been obvious, but now she had collected herself. It was reassuring, in a way, to know that some things hadn't changed. No matter what, Cora was cool as a cucumber.

"I don't want to waste your time," he said, deciding to skip the pleasantries, "But honestly, I don't see anything here. Are you sure he's not just…"

He trailed off. He didn't want to talk about the break up, even abstractly, but this was what Derek did. Something happened, he ran. He couldn't handle dealing with his problems like a mature adult. He had never been able to, not since high school. He had reacted to Paige's death by acting out – running away from home, disappearing for almost a week. (Stiles still didn't understand why his parents weren't more concerned at the time, but Tahlia had only sighed and said he would come back when he was ready.) After the fire, he had been a wreck. It was months before he was discharged from the hospital. They hadn't been dating, hadn't even really known each other at the time, but Stiles had heard all about it – Derek had never been particularly open about that time in his life, and he hadn't wanted to push, but he had been the talk of the town for months after the fire. It was like everywhere Stiles went, everyone was whispering about the Hales. And then _Laura_ happened_,_ and he had gone off the deep end.

"I'm sure," Cora interrupted his thought process, narrowing her eyes, "He's my brother, he wouldn't just ignore me like this."

Stiles raised an eyebrow. Derek had ignored him for weeks after the break up, it wasn't much of a stretch to think he might be ignoring Cora for whatever reason. She frowned at him, pulling out her phone and pressing a few buttons.

"_Cora, pick up the damn phone. I need you to –"_ there was crackling, then the call cut out. She gave Stiles a triumphant look. He shrugged. Okay, sure, he was willing to concede it was good that Derek had contacted her, and yes, he sounded stressed, but it didn't prove anything. Certainly not foul play.

"It was from a blocked number, not Derek's cell," she pointed out, which still meant absolutely nothing as far as Stiles was concerned, "He called me again last night."

"_Cora,"_ Derek sounded hoarse, and he coughed hard: a wet, sick sound, _"Fuck, Cora, it's the fire. Laura got too close, that's why –"_

"_Aw, sweetie,"_ that voice gave Stiles _chills, "I _really_ don't want to hurt you."_

There was shuffling, Derek hissing something he couldn't make out, and a sharp _crack_ before the message ended.

"Fuck," he hissed, "I'm gonna need to borrow your phone."

"Why?" Cora demanded.

"Do you want your brother back or not?" he snapped. He wasn't in the mood to deal with this bullshit. This case had just gone from runaway to kidnapping. It was a job for the police, even he could admit that. And he fully intended to report what was going on to his father later, but if Derek had been taken outside the county, he would be out of his jurisdiction. No way in Hell was he going to trust Derek's safety to some random gun-toting deputy.

She swallowed, looking hesitant, but finally nodded and passed the phone over.

"I need to make a call, don't move," he ordered, picking up his desk phone and dialing.

"_What."_

"Fuck you, Ethan, put Danny on the phone," he couldn't be bothered to make nice with Danny's boyfriend right now, "Tell him it's urgent."

"_It's Stilinski."_

There was some crackling as the phone was passed.

"_Stiles, what's up?"_

"Are you busy right now?"

"_Uh, sort of. Why?"_

"I need a favor."

It took another five minutes of guilt-tripping and blackmailing (and carefully evading who was involved), but Danny finally agreed to come over in an hour, "just so you'll shut up." Stiles was fine with that, he had never had a problem annoying people into doing things for him. He sarcastically thanked him (he would be worried if he sounded sincere, they weren't those kind of friends!) before hanging up the phone.

"Okay. Start from the beginning," he directed, waving a hand at Cora. She wrung her hands in her lap in an off-color show of anxiety.

"He changed, after Laura," she whispered, shaking her head slightly as if to clear her thoughts, "You saw how he was. He freaked. He dumped you, and –"

"Yeah, I know that part, thanks," he snapped. He didn't need a rehash of their break up, as if he hadn't replayed every moment in his head a thousand times over, thinking about every little thing he could have done differently. (If he had stayed a little longer, if he had held him just a little tighter, if he had told him how much he loved him just a little more often…) She nodded.

"Right, but you didn't see…you weren't there. He was _obsessed_ with finding her killer."

Stiles could understand that. It was bad enough that his sister died, but Laura's murder had been horrific. She had been slashed into pieces and left scattered on the Hale's old property. Derek had been devastated, which shocked no one. Stiles tried, he tried so hard to help him, but Derek only pushed him away. It was a few weeks after Laura's death that they broke up.

Derek hadn't told him he was looking into the murder, but it didn't surprise him. He had suspected as much.

"A few months ago, Derek started acting weird – sneaking around, showing up late to work, getting into trouble. He got arrested for disturbing the peace and trespassing, twice. He's never so much as gotten a speeding ticket! He went off the radar for days at a time. He showed up to Uncle Peter's birthday _drunk._ He doesn't even drink!"

No, he didn't. Stiles remembered. He said he didn't like to feel out of control. Stiles had always wondered if there was a story there, but he didn't ask. He put it down to trauma; Derek had issues up the wazoo.

"So I called him out on it, and he said he was dating someone. He wouldn't tell me her name. He said it wasn't serious, but I know Derek, he doesn't do casual. And the way he talked about her, he said she was wonderful, and she made him feel alive again. He said he couldn't imagine being without her. Does that sound casual to you?" she demanded, but it was obviously rhetorical, "He said she was the most beautiful woman alive. But he was so _evasive._ She called his cell sometimes, and he'd always answer, but he'd go close himself in the bathroom or something so I couldn't hear. Then, all of a sudden, about two months ago, he stopped answering his phone. I called his boss and he said he quit weeks ago. I went to his apartment, and his car was gone. I tried the front door, but he changed the lock. So I broke in through the window – what, stop looking at me like that, it's not like he'd have had me arrested – and it looked like he hadn't been there in days, at least. There were dirty dishes in the sink, and rotting fruit on the counter. Derek's not a slob. He always kept his apartment clean, but it was gross. I kept calling him, he never answered. Then he called me and left that first message, in the middle of the night. And the one last night. That's all. I haven't heard anything else."

Stiles scratched his head.

"Do you know anything about the girlfriend?" he asked. She shook her head, "What about the fire? What does it have to do with Laura?"

She hesitated, pursing her lips thoughtfully for a moment, before finally answering, "You remember how your dad said it looked like a gang's work? Like a warning?"

He nodded. He didn't like to think about it too closely – he had insisted on going with Derek to identify the body, he thought his years of snooping around crime scenes would ensure he could handle it, but nothing could prepare him for the sight of beautiful Laura spread out on a metal table, her black hair spilled wild around her head and neck, her mouth frozen wide in what could only be described as horror, the lower half of her body _missing._ It had been days before Derek found the other half in the preserve, when he had called Stiles during class and been too distraught to say anything but his location and "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, just, please…" Stiles had ditched class immediately and stayed on the phone with him through the nearly hour long drive back to Beacon Hills, talking softly about derivatives and theorems and whispering "shhh, I'm right here, I'm on my way, I'm not leaving, Der" each time he heard a hitched sob on the other end of the line.

"We never knew what happened," Cora was explaining, "Laura never did anything to anyone. I know Derek had a few ideas, but he was so afraid…"

Stiles hadn't known that. Derek had been edgy in those weeks leading up to the break up, but he had always assumed it was grief, possibly his PTSD resurfacing. Derek had always been quick to hide his inadequacies (fear, anxiety, sadness) behind a wall of anger. He thought of all the times Derek had looked over his shoulder just a little too long, flinched just a little too violently when someone startled him, hovered just a little too closely for comfort. It had never occurred to Stiles that his sudden mood swings might be driven by fear, he had always just assumed it was Derek's way of coping with his sister's unexpected, and certainly horrific, death. It hadn't seemed fair to criticize his behavior when he was dealing with something so unimaginable.

"What kind of ideas?" he asked.

She shook her head, "I never knew; he never wanted to talk about it. He asked me not to look into it. It wasn't until last night that I realized he thought it was related to the fire."

She pointed to a folder labeled HALE FIRE. Stiles pulled it out and started flipping through it. There were newspaper cutouts, with headlines like, "Tragic fire kills nearly twenty", "Historic home lost in smoke", and "Blaze leaves eighteen dead and three severely injured". Stiles remembered how his father had come home smelling of smoke and ash that night.

"They ruled that it was electrical failure, right?" he asked, knowing the answer but needing to confirm it.

Cora nodded slightly, "Derek always suspected it was arson. It was too coincidental – it was our grandmother's 92nd birthday, it was a big party. I remember everyone was screaming, and Dad said, 'it's okay, don't panic.' But the door was locked. Derek broke the window, but I was the only one small enough to fit. I remember he pushed me out and told me to run. I ran to the neighbor's house, and they called 911. I could hear my mother screaming. When they finally put out the blaze…they let me ride with Derek, he flat-lined. When he woke up, he said…he said the last thing he heard was a woman _giggling._ At first I thought he was hallucinating, but…"

"But they found footprints," Stiles said it for her, because he remembered. He remembered his father saying there was evidence of arson, and what kind of monster would do that?

_A madwoman would,_ he thought. There hadn't been enough to look for a killer (because that's what she was, a killer, after she murdered eighteen people in cold blood, and left another three for dead). And there was evidence pointing to an electrical failure, they had called in the fire chief and an electrician to look it over and they had deduced that an electrical failure was the most likely explanation. Stiles remembered his father had been furious, but they had insisted, "this kind of thing just doesn't happen in Beacon Hills, John – it was a tragic accident, but that's all." With three of the five remaining Hales in critical condition at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital, Cora too young to testify, and Laura overwhelmed (suddenly having to take custody of her three younger siblings – two hospitalized – and decide whether to pull the plug on her uncle), there hadn't been anyone to push for a more thorough investigation. Tahlia Hale was a respected lawyer, and Stiles knew she would have gotten their arsonist locked up for life, but she hadn't survived the fire. With her gone, the only one physically able and old enough to take her place was Laura, and she couldn't focus on revenge when she had two younger brothers on death's door. It was all she could do to make funeral arrangements for the dead, and even that had been a tremendous undertaking, ultimately arranging nineteen (after one brother succumbed to his injuries) and finding plots where they could bury all of the bodies (what was left of them) side by side.

"You'll help him, right?" Cora was saying, bringing him back to where he was. He blinked, startled from his reverie, realizing she wanted an answer. It came to him immediately, there was only one answer he could give her. He couldn't live with any other answer.

They may have broken up, but he still loved him. It wasn't even about winning him back. Stiles could never explain why he wanted to open a private detective agency with Lydia, but he thought it might have something to do with this – the need to protect people from this, from not knowing what had happened, from being left in the dark. A small part of him knew it wasn't only about Cora's suffering though, it was about Derek, who had been through enough and didn't deserve to have his remaining family ripped from him, not to mention his freedom, if Stiles was correct in his assumptions.

"I'll bring him home, Cora."

* * *

Reviews are love! I'm also in the midst of writing Lights Will Guide You Home, so I'm not sure how quickly this will be updated, but I'll do my best. This is my first Sterek story and I'm super excited. :D


	2. Shadows on the Walls

Sorry for the delay, guys! The last week has been nothing short of hellish. Still have a very sick dog. :( But I digress. Wrote this while listening to "Moonlight Shadow" by Groove Coverage, check it out, it's great.

Another thank you to my beta, Twilight684. This wouldn't be possible without her!

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf and am making no profit from this writing.

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Chapter 2: Shadows on the Walls

"You wanna explain to me why _Cora Hale_ is here?" Danny demanded after dragging Stiles into the bathroom (which, okay, did he think he was being subtle?).

"Do you guys not get along?" he decided to play dumb so that maybe his friend-slash-tech consultant, even though he had never formally agreed to that title, would drop it.

Danny scowled, "Stiles."

Dammit. He swallowed, his mind racing as he tried to come up with something to say that wouldn't make the other man storm out without giving him a chance to explain.

"Okay, look, I know what you're thinking, but just hear her out. We don't have a whole lot –" he winced when he saw Danny's disbelieving look, "Okay, we have, like, a phone call, but there _is_ evidence of foul play!"

He still looked skeptical. Stiles took a deep breath, "You owe him. For Ethan."

Danny froze, his eyes widening at that. Stiles knew he was remembering the nearly two weeks Ethan had been missing, still in hiding even after his twin brother Aiden had been found three hours from Beacon Hills and taken to an intensive care unit. Lydia had eventually tracked Ethan to a small town in Washington, but it had been Derek who had actually found him and brought him home, both of them looking rather worse for wear (Derek had looked like he had a run-in with a monster truck, and Stiles had told him so).

They never talked about it – about why Aiden had been brutally beaten, or why Ethan was so frightened that he left his brother behind and ran to another state. Stiles had asked Derek about it a few times, but he had only ever shaken his head and claimed that it was Ethan's story to tell. He had always looked so tired when it came up; Stiles hadn't had the heart to press him beyond that. He had always assumed Danny knew more, but now, seeing the tension in his friend's jaw, he had to question his reasoning. For the first time, it occurred to Stiles that maybe Ethan had been as secretive as Derek had about what had happened that night.

"Fine," Danny snapped, "I'll do it because he saved Ethan, but after this, I'm done. You can't hold it over me the whole time you're working on this. He's still a jackass."

Stiles grinned, "That's all I'm asking, buddy. Just a few hours of your time, then you're free to go, no strings attached."

He thought he heard the other man mutter something like "there's always strings attached with you" as he left the bathroom, but he couldn't be sure.

They reentered Stiles' office, where Cora sat looking at a small picture frame. She set it back on the desk, looking embarrassed, when she heard them come in. Stiles felt his face go hot. Even without looking at the picture he recognized that frame. It was of him and Derek at Laura's birthday party. It had been taken only a few weeks before she died. Stiles could never quite bring himself to get rid of it, even after they broke up. It was a time when they were happy, and Derek had been mid-laugh when Scott snapped the photo. It was Derek in those moments when he forgot about the fire, before his sister's death destroyed and consumed him. It was the Derek he fell in love with, the Derek he still dreamed about sometimes.

He was distracted from his reverie by Danny opening his briefcase and pulling out…he didn't know what it all was, but he recognized some of it from previous cases with Danny and it all looked incredibly complicated. Danny set up his laptop and plugged in Cora's phone.

A minute later, Derek's voice was coming through the tinny speakers, _"Cora, fuck, Cora…"_

Danny paused the recorded message, rewinding and playing it again. "You hear that?" he asked.

Stiles raised an eyebrow. Cora just stared at him blankly.

He hit a few keys, adjusting something, before playing it again.

"_Cora – zzzzttt – fuck, Cora."_

"It sounds like bees," she said softly, her brow furrowed with confusion and, Stiles thought, concern.

"Electricity," Danny replied, nodding, before he resumed the recording.

"…_it's the fire. Laura got too close, that's why –"_

"_Aw, sweetie. I _really_ don't want to hurt you."_

"Can you make out what he's saying?" Stiles asked, straining to understand the words among the scuffle that seemed to be taking place, but still unable to catch more than a hiss.

Danny adjusted something else.

"_Zzztt – Kate – zzztt!"_

"Why does it sound like a bug zapper?" Cora was quiet, her voice betraying only the slightest hint of alarm.

There was a mangled cry, and Stiles was struck with the horrible, painful realization as to just what he was listening to, "Oh God. She's…"

The others were silent, everyone's attention on the sounds coming through the speakers. Harsh pants were audible before he yelled again. Then there was a crackling sound and the line went dead.

"She's torturing him," Stiles whispered, fervently wishing for someone to correct him, even as his stomach lurched and he knew in his gut that he was right. Danny set his jaw, like he didn't know how to respond to that, but he didn't deny it. Stiles was so caught up in his own horror that he didn't notice Cora standing up until he heard the door slam behind her.

"She'll come back," he muttered a minute later when Danny looked like he was considering going after her. "She's just…"

"Yeah. I get it."

Stiles ran a hand through his hair, a nervous habit he only resorted to when he felt a panic attack brewing. "Okay, so Derek is being tortured by some crazy bitch. That's what we're saying, right?"

Danny nodded slowly, looking at him like he expected him to implode at any moment, "That's what we're saying, Stiles."

"Fucking hell," he threw his pen at the wall. He picked up his phone only to slam it back into the cradle. He clenched his fists hard enough that his nails left pink indents in his skin. None of it made him feel any better. Derek was being _tortured_ and there was nothing he could do about it. He hunched over and covered his face with his hands, feeling the breaths start to come in faster and shorter.

"Stiles? Stiles, you need to calm down. Stiles – fuck. Lydia!" Danny was yelling, but he sounded far away, like he was at the other end of a tunnel. Stiles could hardly hear him over the voices in his head – Derek laughing, Derek whispering in his ear, Derek crying over his sister's dead body, Derek _screaming._ He had only ever heard Derek cry out in his nightmares, but he could hear him now, screaming and sobbing, "stop it, just stop, please, make it stop." Derek alone and scared while some psychopath _tortured_ him, and God, what was she doing to him? Was she electrocuting him? Was she burning him? Derek couldn't take that, not with his PTSD, it would break him. Stiles had to find him, he had to protect him, he had to…

Lydia slapped him. He blinked, slowly coming up out of the haze.

"Stiles," Lydia was saying, "listen to me. Derek is _alive_, and you're going to find him because that's what you do, okay? You find people."

He took a few deep, shuddering breaths before nodding. Right. He had to stay calm if he was going to find Derek, and he _was_ going to find him. Find him and fucking _strangle_ him for making him worry like this.

"Danny, can you get anything from the call? A number, a location, anything?" he asked, focusing on what he could do right now for Derek. He couldn't fight _Kate_, but he could do this.

"Sorry, it's blocked. If he calls back I might be able to trace it," Danny replied, and he did genuinely sound apologetic.

They all turned around as Cora reentered the room, looking perfectly calm, as if she hadn't just heard that her only brother was being held captive and tortured.

"What do we do now?" she asked, stoic as ever. It had always baffled Stiles how she could turn her emotions off at the drop of the hat. The day Cora broke down would be the day pigs flew and the sky turned pink.

"If what Danny just told me is true," Lydia answered, "we call the police and let them take it from here."

"I already went to the police!" Cora snarled viciously. "I told you they said there wasn't enough evidence!"

"There's not enough evidence for _us_ either," she insisted. "Enough to prove he's in trouble, not enough to tell us how to find him. He's been missing over a month. For all we know, he could be on the other side of the country by now."

"Which is exactly why we need to find him now!" the brunette argued. "She's had him so long – who knows what she's done to him! She could be taking him out of the country tomorrow!"

"_Okay!_" Stiles shouted. "Guys, stop, you're not helping."

They all turned to stare at him. Danny raised an eyebrow as if to say _did you really want to piss them off?_ He ignored him.

"Cora, go home. Keep your phone on in case he tries to call again. Lydia, you can go home, I'll cover for tonight. Danny, can you email me that audio?"

His friend nodded, fingers already tapping away on his laptop.

"You don't want me to stay and go over the case with you?" Cora protested.

Stiles shook his head, trying not to seem exasperated.

Lydia didn't say anything, just looked at him with concern as he explained.

"I need some time to look over everything. I'll call you tomorrow if I have any questions."

She frowned but finally nodded, accepting her phone back from Danny and leaving without another word. Stiles could tell she was annoyed, but he didn't have the energy to soothe her ego tonight.

Danny packed his things up and left, tossing a quick "let me know if you need anything" over his shoulder.

He felt a little lighter knowing Danny must have been willing to forgive Derek at least enough to help with this. Then he turned back to Lydia. "What?" he asked a little defensively.

She shook her head slightly, "Nothing. Just, are you sure you're okay alone? I can stay."

He smiled at her. She always knew when he was upset, more so even than Scott. But he shooed her nonetheless, "I'll be fine. Go watch _The Notebook_ with Jackson, or whatever it is you guys do."

She grinned widely and leaned forward to place a chaste kiss on his cheek before darting out of the room. He heard an "oomph" and a giggle in the other office, and knew she must have tackled her boyfriend. He tried to staunch the part of him that whispered vindictively, _how long was Derek being tortured while you pretended everything was okay?_

Because he knew, rationally, that Lydia didn't know. If she had known she wouldn't have kept it secret like she had. He knew, he _knew_ she was only trying to protect him, but there was a part of him that still ached for Derek, that still felt viciously protective of him, and that part of him was furious that she had sacrificed Derek's safety for his feelings, however unknowingly it may have been.

* * *

Stiles spent the night searching for answers. He dug through Lydia's folders and pulled out the old file on the Hale fire. The photographs were grainy, some of them yellowed with age before she was able to retrieve them, but they painted a stark picture. Unfortunately it was one he already knew.

Still, Derek had mentioned the fire when he called Cora. He had seemed certain that Laura's death was somehow connected to the fire, and it was pretty clear to Stiles that he had been taken because of his relation to her – it was unclear whether it was because he was looking into her death or because he was looking into the fire, but there was a link there, Stiles was sure of it. And he was equally sure that he was going to find it, because if he wanted to catch a murderer, if he wanted to catch this _Kate_, he first had to understand her. He had to get into her mind, as much as he could.

He spread out the photographs from the fire on his desk and, in a row below them, the photographs from Laura's murder. It still hurt to look at her, to see Derek's beautiful sister, who had once been so vibrant and full of life, left in pieces for the carrion to feast on. It hurt, and he felt sick looking at her splayed out the way she was, but he knew she would have wanted him to find her brother, no matter what the cost. Just before she was killed, Laura and Derek had had a vicious fight, but Stiles had never doubted that the Hale siblings adored each other, even when they were at each other's throats. Laura had loved her remaining siblings, was so protective of Derek that he knew she had to be rolling in her grave right then.

It struck him as he was looking at the photographs that he didn't recognize the tattoo on her left wrist. The one on her lower back, peeking through the torn shirt, he recognized – it was the same one Derek had between his shoulder blades, the triskele. This tattoo, though, he had never seen before. It was another symbol, a red spiral. He thought back to Laura's birthday – Derek had been twirling her around, showing off (because _of course_ he knew how to tango). It was one of the last times Stiles had seen Laura alive, and it was hard to forget that night. He could still remember her vividly, her wide smile and sparkling blue eyes, and he was sure her wrists had been bare. It was possible she had gotten it just before her death, but Laura was the type to show something like that off, so it seemed strange that she wouldn't have mentioned it.

Stiles' eyes slowly traveled down the desk, looking over each photograph. The morgue. The ink on her wrist was smudged, the spiral barely identifiable. The color had changed to a dark red that was almost brown. It didn't look like any tattoo he had ever seen. The way it was smeared…

He froze.

Suddenly the pieces fit. The spiral didn't look like a tattoo because it wasn't one. It was smeared the way it was, dried the way it was, because it wasn't ink. The spiral had been drawn in blood. He swallowed. Stiles was the only son of the sheriff; he knew what a mark like that meant. It was a calling card.

_One is an incident._

He turned his eyes to the photographs from the second crime scene, where Derek had found the lower half of Laura's body, her silver charm bracelet gleaming brightly on her ankle. There were no spirals on her body that he could see there, but there was something strange about the way the body had been laid out. She hadn't been tossed there; she had been arranged, almost artfully.

Stiles picked up the picture and held it to the light, turning it this way and that.

There it was. When he turned the photograph upside down, the splay of her legs made the innermost swirl of the spiral, nearly identical to the one on her wrist. It was crooked and uneven, allowing for the fact that the human body could never bend in such a manner, but the intended effect was obvious. The spiral continued from one leg and spread around her in a trail of burned grass, not unlike a crop circle.

It had been disturbed (by Derek falling to his knees before his sister's corpse), and maybe that was why the police hadn't noticed it, but Stiles knew what to look for, and that made all the difference. He took a red pen from his desk and traced the pattern so that he wouldn't forget it later.

_Two is a coincidence._

He moved to the fire. Those photographs were perhaps the most difficult to look at as he could make out some of the shapes burned onto the walls – shapes that were once human, once living, once people, people who were Derek's _family_! And he felt a familiar spark of fury at the thought that those black smudges on the wall had once been Derek's mother, his father, his aunts and cousins and brothers. Eighteen people had died that day, and there had been barely anything but bones and jewelry to bury. He could make out Laura's locket, now Cora's, on an unidentifiable husk that he knew must have once been Tahlia Hale. There were cufflinks and belt buckles, signs that their owners had been going about their daily lives only hours before the photographs had been taken.

Carved onto the outside of the door was a spiral.

_Three is a pattern._

"Fuck," he whispered.

He scrambled for the folder with the photographs from Derek's apartment. He laid them all out on the floor (he was running out of space on his desk). There was nothing on the front door, nothing on the back, and nothing on the bedroom door either. As far as he could tell there were no signs of anything abnormal, apart from the rotting fruit and dirty dishes Cora had mentioned in the kitchen. If Kate or her associates (he wasn't ruling out that she had had help to kill that many people) had left their calling card, it wasn't in any of the pictures Cora had given them.

It made sense, though, he thought. Everything indicated Derek had left the apartment willingly. He had left his car, so Kate had probably picked him up at the apartment or nearby. Likely she hadn't had a chance to leave her calling card without invoking suspicion. Besides that, her previous victims – at least the ones Stiles knew about – were dead. It was possible she only left the spiral after she had killed.

It was painfully clear, however, that the spiral on the door of the old Hale house had been carved before they had been murdered. The door had been charred, the edges of the spiral burned away slightly, indicating it had been left either before the fire started, or soon after. Certainly, it had been completed before the fire reached the door.

The positioning of the spiral in each scene, though, it was strange. The first spiral was on the door, obvious to anyone who was looking for it. The second was on Laura's wrist, hidden slightly but still visible. The third was more subtle, enough that it would be nearly undetectable unless the observer knew what to look for.

He remembered the way Derek had collapsed – he had been a few feet away from his sister's corpse, and now Stiles realized he had stayed at the edge of the spiral. He hadn't touched Laura's body. At the time, Stiles thought he had simply recoiled from the gruesome sight, but now he wondered if it was more than that. He hadn't gone past the outer whirl of the spiral. On some level, he must have known.

Stiles was almost inclined to think it was some sort of warning sign, like the drug cartels that left bodies in strategic places to warn others out of their territory. There had never been any doubt in his mind that Laura's lower half was left where it was so that Derek would be the one to find her. She had been left near the old Hale house. Her killer had to have known that he and Cora would be the only ones likely to come upon the body; the Hale land was private property. Anyone else would be trespassing. If they had been trying to hide her they would have taken the bracelet from her ankle, they would not have left the upper half of her body at the edge of the preserve for passing cars to see. It had been a ploy to draw Derek in – leave his sister in pieces, make him go looking for the other half, so they could be absolutely sure he got the message.

At the time, Stiles hadn't realized the extent of the situation. Who could blame him? The Hale fire had been ruled accidental. From what little he pried out of Derek, he had discerned that Laura was poking around something, specifically a few days before she was murdered. Derek had said she should keep her head down and leave well enough alone. The older man had been freaked out, furious and terrified at the same time. Now, Stiles realized he must have known she was investigating the fire.

Stiles' first instinct was to call his father and ask him to reopen the case of the Hale fire, but he was afraid of what Kate might do to Derek if word got out. Besides that, his dad would want proof. The case was nearly a decade old; he would need more than a spiral on the door to reopen it. There had to be new evidence that pointed to arson.

He had to see the crime scene for himself. He had been to the preserve before, but never to the old Hale house. Trespassing laws had never really bothered Stiles, not if something interested him enough, but going to see the place where Derek's family had died just seemed _wrong_, and not in a good way. It would be violating his trust.

It still didn't sit right with him, and he knew Derek would be furious if he ever found out, but he knew it was necessary this time. The ends justified the means, he reasoned. It was more important that he find Derek – _alive_ – than it was that he respect his privacy. He would bring Cora with him, see what she remembered from the fire. If nothing else, she could tell him if the spiral meant anything to her.

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